it's hard to know, even though the taliban claims responsibility, what happened and who is behind it. host: how does the u.s. view him? guest: the u.s. has most recently seen him as an unsolvable problem. he has been a friend to the u.s. for a long time. because he has been someone who has been hard to bring on board with some of the programs to develop the province, to work with the military -- no one says this directly, granted, because he is a relative of hamid karzai. in private talks, u.s. officials would say they do not know exactly how to handle him. at the same time, he was also someone who was exerting a certain amount of control over the area and able to pass by areas that may not have otherwise been passed by. he has been a complicated friend to the u.s. host: what are the implications of his death for a political solution in afghanistan? guest: it is hard to know. he's one of a series of high- level assassinations that have happened over recent months. the question is, if these are all insurgent attacks, does this mean that the insurgency is saying that they are powerful e